My wife is a nurse and sometime those two titles can become somewhat paradoxical. As a nurse, Aviva is always making sure I am scheduling my doctor appointments, asking the right questions, and doing everything necessary for my health. As my wife, though, Aviva understands the difficulty of daily appointments and tolerates my complaining. In terms of my medicine, Aviva the Wife empathizes with my lackadaisical attitude, realizing that taking pills all day, every day can become overwhelming. But nurses do not understand the term non-compliance. And so Aviva pushes me, reminds me, and even bribes me to take my medicine.
This last option, bribing, is perhaps the best way to get my attention. With the body and appetite of a fifteen year-old, I try to maintain the attitude of one as well. A few years ago, having graduated from college and starting a job, I bought an X-box 360. And with the responsibilities of marriage and the prospect of fatherhood, I still have not given up my affinity towards video games. Unfortunately, my wife does not share my love for living vicariously through little computer generated players. And since x-box games can become quite pricey, her approval of my teenage lifestyle is sometimes waining.
A couple of years ago, Aviva in all her brilliance, came up with “X-box Bucks.” X-box bucks is based on the idea that I will be more likely to take my meds if I can get something out of it, in this case X-box games. In essence, the rules to X-box bucks are pretty simple; the more medicine you take, the more games you can buy. But the inner-workings of this bribing system are actually quite complicated. For each dose of medicine I take (at the time, that was two a day), I earn a dollar. Thus I can earn up to 14 dollars a week just from taking my usual pills. However, in order to earn the 14 dollars I had to take every single dose that week, meaning if I missed Tuesday morning’s meds, I couldn’t get any money that week. I could also earn up to 6 “bonus bucks” a week by taking 10 vitamins (my prescription calls for two a day). In all, I could bring in a hefty twenty bucks a week, a pretty good allowance for a teenage boy.
At first the system worked beautifully. I took my medicine on time, all the time. I even took my vitamins. Aviva was so proud of me that after five consecutive weeks of completing all my prescribed meds, she gave me an extra 5 “bonus bucks”. Yes, it was a glorious time of killing brain cells playing Madden and shooting games through the night. But like all teenagers, I could only follow the rules for so long. I soon became bored of our system and began to fall into my old habits, skipping doses and never taking my vitamins. Aviva, always the inventor, began to deduct points for missed doses. For each dose I missed, I would lose an x-box buck. Unfortunately this had little effect and in no time, all my money had dwindled.
In all honesty, I don’t think I felt any healthier in those few months of compliance. I can’t remember if my blood results were better either. I do know, though, that a machine that usually tears families apart actually brought Aviva and I closer together. Of course, for this, all the credit goes to my wife. While I was sitting in front of the TV trying to figure out how to beat Grand Theft Auto, Aviva was coming up with a way for me to take my meds and take better care of myself. As I said, my wife is a nurse and sometimes those two titles can be absolutely beautiful.
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